The Clinton camp's expectations

From NBC's Mark MurrayOn the eve of Super Tuesday, the Clinton campaign held a conference call with reporters stressing: 1) that they expect to be ahead in total delegates (including super delegates) after tomorrow's contests; and 2) that the Clinton-Obama race might not be decided until March, April, or even the Democratic convention.

The conference call came on the heels of an Obama campaign memo, which predicted that after tomorrow, they expect to be within 100 delegates of the Clinton camp's count. One could argue that as the race has tightened, the Obama folks are setting that expectations bar quite low.

And perhaps so are the Clinton folks. In the call, communications director Howard Wolfson said that come, February 6, Clinton will be leading Obama in overall delegates, including the unpledged superdelegates -- the governors, members of Congress, and party leaders who also play a role in deciding the Democratic nominee.

Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn noted that the race will be far from over on Tuesday. "We don't expect this to be decided tomorrow," he said. "The delegate hunt will continue."

"The nominating battle," Wolfson added, "is likely to continue well past" Super Tuesday -- possibly into March, April or even the convention.

Penn also said on the call that the polls do show the Clinton-Obama race to be tightening (attributing some of it to an influx of Edwards' support). But he reminded reporters of what happened in New Hampshire. "You really never know how the votes are going to turn out until they are cast."